Curriculum Vitae

Ignacio Boixo

Date/place of birth: 2 September 1955, León, Spain
Office address: Banco de España, Alcalá 522, Madrid E-28027, Spain
Office: phone +34-91338.6452, fax +34-91338.6870, e-mail boixo@bde.es
Home: phone +34-91531.9246, mobile +34-63566.1163 fax +34-91531.7942
Web page: www.boixo.com e-mail ignacio@boixo.com
One son (MSc computing & maths, MA philosophy) and one daughter (MSc maths).

(last update: December 2003)

ABSTRACT

                     University degree on Information Systems (MSc degree, five years course) plus two additional years of postgraduate on advanced programming. Postgraduate doctoral course on Financial Economy.

                     In the computing field since 1973, with IT professional experience in full time jobs since 1977, mainly in projects, software & networking. Promoted to Production Manager in 1978. I joined the Banco de España in 1980, as an IT expert. Promoted to Manager of Communications Area in 1987, and to Head of IT Infrastructure and Communications Division in 1989. Member of the Information Technology Committee of the European System of Central Banks -ESCB- since its creation in 1992. Current position is IT Coordinator on ESCB issues since 1999.

Main tasks have been related with building, managing, coaching, motivating, and supervising teams of qualified IT experts, in order to implement, from inception to long-term support, complex and/or major projects. Close co-operation with business areas and external agents has been required, optimising effectiveness and efficiency, as in RTGS, Retail Payment Systems, Dealing Rooms, Government Bonds Electronic Market, Service Level Agreements and Disaster Recovery Plans.

                     Experience as an IT consultant, forensic computer expert in court, and IT reviewer in the European Commission DG XIII. President of the Computer Engineers Association of Madrid. Lecturer in computing with several published papers. Member of ISSA and MENSA.

 

IT SKILLS

-                    Multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary organisational approach, integrating different efforts in a common framework, in order to achieve global success

-                    Implementing information flow, communications and computing, using both IT and organisational solutions, in order to achieve business objectives.

-                    Organisation of working environment, recruiting and integrating employees and contracted staff in teams and projects, emphasising definition of goals, control of deliverables and results measurement.

-                    Management of complex IT related projects, with budget and/or labour restrictions, under time pressure, involving methodologies, development, architectures, and environments.

-                    Control of security, availability and audit solutions, in order to build safe and reliable systems for mission-critical applications in contingency-proof environments.

 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

 

Banco de España (1980 to present)

1999-..          IT Co-ordinator in the Banco de España for the European System of Central Banks issues. Focal point in the projects linking the Bank of Spain with the ESCB, as the pan-european RTGS (TARGET), ESCB-Net, Tender Operations, Bilateral Interventions, Counterfeit Monitoring System, Exchange of Statistical and not Statistical Data. ESCB Audit Interlocutor. Reviewer of disaster recovery plans on the Bank of Spain. Service Level Agreements negotiations.

1998-2000    Chief architect in the European Central Bank for the Y2K bilateral Test Weekends of the European System of Central Banks. Representative of the Banco de España in the ESCB’s Y2K Co-ordination Committee (COCO) and the Y2K Compliance Ad hoc Group. Co-ordinator of the Spanish Financial Market Authorities (FMAs) and Head of the Central Communications Point of the Banco de España in the Y2K changeover. Y2K spokesperson on behalf of FMAs with the Spanish National Y2K Transition Office, the ECB/ESCB, and the Joint Y2K Council (MACS).

1992-...         Being a member of the ESCB Information Technology Committee since the beginning, I have participated in the setting-up of the ESCB projects.

1989-1998    Head of Infrastructure and Communications Division, in charge of creating and managing a team of more than forty staff members -mainly computer engineers- and an important budget. The aim of this Division is to enable the IS Department to design, develop and execute the applications and systems of the Banco de España, usually with mission-critical requirements. The Division covers the basic software, hardware, communications, related products and value-added systems, for all kind of computing platforms. It offers support to the IS Department and specific areas, like databases, security, development, operations, user support and so on.

1987-89        Manager of Communications Area, with tasks that includes the selection, purchase, installation, implementation, upgrading and maintenance of all kind of communication equipment, LAN and communication lines. The two headquarters and fifty branches have a total of two IBM central computers, sixty departmental Unix and two thousand PCs and terminals. More than two hundred banks are connected with terminals to the central computer. Technical co-ordination of the Spanish National Electronic Clearing System (retail payments) and the RTGS.

 

MAIN PROJECTS

2003             Collaboration with the Banking Supervision Agencies of Bosnia-Herzegovina, both on Sarajevo and Banja Luka, defining a Common Banking Database. Signature of Service Level Agreements among the IS Department and different Business Areas. Design & evaluation team member of the pan-european transport layer CORE-Net for the European System of Central Banks. 

2001-02        In depth review of potential models and strategies for the Eurosystem RTGS TARGET. A number of models were in discussion, in order to update the original design of the TrAns-european Real time Gross sEttlement sysTem. Specially the models Centralised, Harmonised and e-settlement were studied. Additional theoretical work and comments were done in the e-settlement model at the request of its author, Mr. Harry Leinonen, Director of the Financial Markets Department of the Bank of Finland.

2000             Controller in the project Counterfeit Monitoring System, for the circulation of Euro banknotes. Start of collaboration with the law enforcement bodies as forensic IT expert. Review of the Disaster Recovery Plan of the Bank of Spain, in the context of the ESCB security measures.

1999             Year 2000 Changeover. Design, implementation and management of the Central Communications Point of the Banco de España. It was used also as internal Single Communications Point inside the Banco de España in order to co-ordinate the information flow between Departments, Branches and outside. The Spanish Financial Sector (FMAs, Banks, Insurance, Securities, Stock Exchange, ATM networks,…) has reported here during the transition to the Year 2000. This Point was also in charge of the information flow with the Spanish National Y2K Transition Office, the ECB/ESCB, and the Joint Year 2000 Council (MACS project).

1999             Design of the Y2K bilateral Test Weekends of the European System of Central Banks. A number of financial applications related with the money market, as well as the underlying network infrastructure, have to achieve integrated Y2K compliance, involving production equipment, as a synchronised multinational exercise (European Union), during selected weekends.

1997-99       Adaptation of applications and IT systems to the Euro and Year 2000 was the major objective for the Banco de España in this time. I play an active role in the implementation of the ESCB projects and upgrading the IT environment.

1995-97       As member of the Teleconference Steering Group, and as manager in this issue in the Banco de España, collaborating in the first ESCB completed Project.

1994-96       Bank of Spain Disaster Recovery strategy: contingency plans and security measures have been developed for the systems, in order to prevent business disruptions or hostile operations. Data communications outside buildings travel encoded, and the main computers are duplicated among both headquarters, with regular contingency tests.

1991-96               In order to install third party applications, a Unix servers deployment strategy has been developed. Currently, several applications run in this way, and the Banco de España has the second largest IBM Unix platform in the Spanish financial sector. The success of this policy has permitted a sustained saving of internal resources and an improvement of the applications at user's disposition. Afterwards, a similar effort in the Windows NT infrastructure has been carried out.

1994-96        Internet/Intranet become suddenly relevant topics. The Website of the Banco de España contains a substantial part of the publications issued by the Bank. This is an important tool to maintain an information flow for economists and interested researchers. Practical experience and studies have improved our Intranet technology.

1991-94        Two hundred economists, mainly from the Research Department and Balance of Payments, have been using the FAME database for economic time series, with a good level of user satisfaction. This was an early (probably the first) European implementation of FAME, later followed by others such as the ECB, BIS and several NCBs.

1992-94        Fullfilling the requirements of dealing rooms and senior management, a Reuters Triarch real-time financial information system was installed, integrating external and internal sources, and running in a 24x7 basis. This system has access to Reuters, Telerate, Brokers, the middle office (portfolio) and internal computers. This system substitutes a Reuters CIS video commuter, the first one in Spain, installed in 1988, also under my supervision.

1989-94        Participating in the technical design, supervision and implantation of the Spanish Inter-banking Retail Payment System, named SNCE (“Sistema Nacional de Compensación Electrónica”). The developers (INDRA software house) reported to the Banco de España. The SNCE is operational since 1994. My main contributions were the internal architecture in layers and APIs -OSI model-, the cryptographic aspects, and technical auditing of candidate Banks.

1988-93        RTGS technical design and implementation. It is based in IBM 3270 dumb terminal emulation over standard PCs with hardware encryption, installed in each Spanish Bank, in connection with the mainframe of the Banco de España, via a X.25 closed group of users. This technically simple and effective solution, named STMD (“ Servicio Telefónico del Mercado del Dinero”), is offering several value-added services to the Banks, using mainframe applications in the Banco de España. As the TARGET is also based in the mainframe, the connection between RTGS and TARGET is very robust. The mainframe applications have access to SWIFT, via an Unix server with Alliance.

1992              External subscribers can retrieve economic time series from a public BBS (Bulletin Board System), first implementation of public electronic data access to the Banco de España.

1989-91        Since its creation, I was a member of the e-mail experts "Bourgignon Group" and I was involved in building the current Central Bank Mail System (Cebamail).

1986-89        IT Advisor to the Head of Domestic Operations Department, implementing the Spanish Electronic Government Debt Market. This includes the assessment of the technical architecture and plans, technical auditing of the Brokers, the global co-ordination for the supply of voice & data lines with the provider (Telephonic). I designed and led the development and implementation of the protocol IE.876 (still in use) between the Brokers and the Banco de España.

1983-89        I was acting as Co-ordinator of computerisation in the branches of the Banco de España. Fifty branches received equipment and five hundred employees were trained in computer use, including the installation of computer equipment. This development allowed the integration of the branches in the common IT Infrastructure.

 

Budgetary Control Consultants (“Control Presupuestario”)

1979-80        In this consultancy firm, the most important in Spain at that time, I obtained experience and knowledge in economic issues and IT management on several business sectors.

                     Among other projects carried out during this time, I designed the sales/invoicing/distribution application for the most important Spanish pharmaceutical company (Antibioticos SA), the mechanisation of the analytical accounting for the Spanish Railways, the first geographical information system (GIS) for the Ministry of Public Works and Town Planning, and the payroll of the Agricultural Technology Institute.

 

Clinic Hospital (“Hospital Clínico”). Madrid

1977-79        In my first full time job, I started as a developer, in a classic mainframe installation, and I attained the level of Production Manager in 1978. The experience obtained was how to apply the theoretical knowledge in a working environment.

 

Student part time jobs

1971-76        From the age of sixteen, until my first full time job, I was active in part time jobs, as an organist in a professional music band and, since 1972, as a teacher of maths and computing for beginners.

 

EDUCATION

1998-00       Certification of lecture period in third cycle studies (doctoral program) on Financial Economy -Banking and Stock Exchange-, Autonomous University of Madrid.

1980-...         Attendance, every year, of several seminars and courses about computing and management (also English language) on a permanent training basis.

1978-81        Postgraduate qualification subjects (two years course) passed in Doctorate program on computing.

1973-78        MSc degree on Information Systems by the Polytechnic University of Madrid, where I completed the five years course.

1972-73        First course of computing, about programming in IBM 1401 Mainframe.

1973             Graduated from High School with a specialisation in Sciences.

 

NON-FOR-PROFIT ACTIVITIES

1999             Founder member of the Spanish Chapter, Information Systems Security Association 

2000-..          President of the President of the Computer Engineers Association of Madrid 

1999             Joined the YES (Y2K Expert Service) Volunteer Corps of the United Nations and World Bank sponsored International Y2K Cooperation Center. I was active in Spanish speaking countries.

1999             Expert of the University Graduates in Computing Spanish Association on Y2K issues, promoting internal and public dissemination of Y2K information, via papers, lectures and press releases.

1990-96                President of the University Graduates in Computing Spanish Association (one of the major IT associations), and several years Member of the Board. Member of the IT Technicians Association also (the largest one, www.ati.es), open to all the IT professionals, graduates and non-graduates.

1991-97        Secretary of the Spanish Federation of Computing Societies. This is an "umbrella" organisation, co-ordinating the IT associations and universities, which represent Spain in international bodies, such as CEPIS (Council of Europe Professional Informatics Societies - European Commission DG XIII Interlocutor) and IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing - UNESCO).

1995             After passing a membership qualification test, I joined the Spanish Chapter of MENSA, a non-profit non-opinion association set up to provide an intellectual and social stimulant environment to its members, promoting studies about human intelligence and behavioural science.

1987-95        Member of the technical/organisational committees of SIMO (the largest Spanish computer trade fair), Informat (Catalonian computer trade fair), Tecnimap (biennial Spanish Government congress in IT) and CIBI (Iberian computing convention)

1990-92        Organisational Vice-chairman of the 12th World Computer Congress IFIP'92 (International Federation for Information Processing), held in Madrid.

1990...          Appointed by the IT Association, I obtained experience in legal implications of computing, being asked to act as computer expert in court on two occasions, with reports about computing misuse in the lawsuit. For the same reason, I participated as IT reviewer in the European Commission DG XIII programme for underdeveloped regions, named Telematics for Urban and Rural Areas.

1988...          Member of the IT Technicians Association (www.ati.es), open to all the IT professionals, graduates and non-graduates. Member of the Spanish Computer Engineers Association (www.ai2.as), only for graduates.

 

PUBLISHED PAPERS

2003             Best practices in Computer Forensics for Images and Documents. Published in www.infoperitos.com and distributed among the Law Enforcement Bodies of Spain.

2002             Comments on e-commerce Law -LSSI-. Published in Novática (the largest Spanish Computer Journal), May issue.

2002             Comments on National Plan of Domain Names under “.es”. Published in www.ai2.as. Web site of the Spanish University Graduates in Computing Association.

2001             Comments on e-commerce law in Spain and EU Directive 2000/31. Published in www.ai2.as

2001             Strategies on multi-national RTGS systems. Paper work for the ESCB.

1999             Author or collaborator of the Press Releases about Year 2000 sent to the media by the University Graduates in Computing Spanish Association. www.ai2.as  

1998             Computer auditing: A practical approach. Chapter 18: Network auditing. ("Auditoría Informática: Un enfoque práctico. Capítulo 18: Auditoría de redes") RA-MA publishers, Spain

1991             Service Directors: A bridge between necessities and possibilities. ("Directores de servicios: Un puente entre necesidades y posibilidades"). AFSM Spanish Chapter Journal, 2Q issue.

1990             The computerisation of the bureaucracy  ("La informatización de la burocracia"). ALI (University Graduates in Computing Association) Journal, November issue.

1990             A postman named e-mail ("Un cartero llamado Correo Electrónico"). El Sol newsletter, 16 November issue.

1989             The role of the IT in the Public Sector. ("La función informática en las Administraciones Públicas"). Tecnimap proceedings. Ministry for Public Administrations, Computing High Council.

 

LECTURES GIVEN

2003             Interview in Tele5 News about "Software patents and proposed European Directive". Spain.

2003             Balanced Scorecard: Implementation at I.S. Department Level. ESCB Information Technology Committee Seminar. Berlin, Germany.

2002             Deontological Code and Best Practices in Computing Forensics. ("Peritaje informático: Códigos de práctica y conducta") SIMO-TCI (largest Spanish computer trade fair) www.simo.ifema.es, Madrid, Spain.

2001             Interview in Radio Intereconomia (the most important Spanish Radio on Economics) about “Comments on e-commerce law in Spain and EU Directive 2000/31”.

2000             Towards a safe Internet. ("Hacia una Internet segura"). II Computing Law days ("II Jornadas de Derecho Informático"), organised by the European Law Student's Association, Chapter of Castilla and Leon www.der.uva.es/elsa. Valladolid, Spain

2000             The deficit of IT experts. ("El déficit de Informáticos") SIMO-TCI (largest Spanish computer trade fair) www.simo.ifema.es, Madrid, Spain

1999             2000 years… of what?. ("2000 años… ¿de qué?"). Keynote speaker in an event organised by the NGO (non-governmental organisation) International Co-operation ("Cooperación Internacional") University of  Valladolid, Spain

1999             Y2K effect: The final countdown. ("El efecto 2000: la recta final"). Computer Engineers School. University of Valladolid. Spain.

1999             Y2K effect: The final countdown. ("El efecto 2000: la recta final"). SIMO-TCI, Madrid, Spain.

1999             Year 2000 test, auditing and experiences. Computer Auditing Organisation ("Organización de Auditoría Informática"), Spanish Chapter of the ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Control Association). University of Valencia, Spain

1999             Auditing Year 2000 Projects. Computer Auditing Organisation conference room, Madrid, Spain

1998             Year 2000 test architecture. ("Arquitectura de pruebas para el año 2000") SIMO-TCI (largest Spanish computer trade fair), Madrid, Spain

1998             Year 2000 test architecture. ("Arquitectura de pruebas para el año 2000") TECNIMAP (largest Spanish Government congress in IT), Salamanca, Spain (published in CD, distributed as Y2K guide in the Public Sector).

1997             Computing: Towards a symbiosis of Science, Technique and Humanities. ("La informática: hacia una simbiosis de Ciencia, Técnica y humanidades") Ateneo of Madrid, Spain (published).

1995             Protecting communications ("La protección de las comunicaciones") University of Malaga, Spain.

1994             Hidden costs of computing ("Los costes ocultos de la informática") Spanish Economists College. Madrid, Spain.

1992             Educating graduates of Information Technology. ("Formación de técnicos titulados en tecnologías de la información") FUNDESCO. Madrid, Spain. (published).

1992             New information technologies: Spanish situation. ("Las nuevas tecnologías de la información: Situación española") Forum da Maia. Porto, Portugal. (published).

                     

LANGUAGES

                     Spanish - Mother tongue.             English - Proficiency

                     French - Read and listen skills.     Portuguese - Good read skills.

 

PERSONAL INTERESTS AND HOBBIES

My primary interest lies with computers, as well as economy, philosophy and behavioural science. Travelling on my own several weeks per year: Mexico, Egypt, Philippines, China, Laos, Morocco, Tunisia, Russia, EEU, and Europe. Other interests include: Live music, ethnic life, science fiction, cinema, theatre, and DIY.

As a disabled person (I am one-handed) I have always been interested in technology that enables the integration of such people and by extension in technological support for enhancing abilities.

 

REFERENCES

Federico Flórez

Head of Information Systems Department.

Banco de España. sistemas_informacion@bde.es +34-91.338.6600

Alcalá 522, Madrid E-28027, Madrid, Spain.

Andreas Hake

Portfolio Manager. Directorate General Information Systems

European Central Bank andreas.hake@ecb.int +49-69.1344.7733

Kaiserstrasse 29. D-60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Harry Leinonen

Director, Financial Markets Department

Bank of Finland harry.leinonen@bof.fi +358.9.183.2112

P.O. Box 160, FIN-00101 Helsinki, Finland.